For once I'm actually glad to hear what SE is saying. Even if things are somewhat of a mess in Japan, at least their Eidos branch and their other partners are doing awesome games. Of these games he mentioned, at least 2 are among my favorites for this generation.

Now what I trully hope is that they try to stay in touch with their consumers when they develop the next Final Fantasy. I'm one of the people that really enjoyed XIII but the more I play the game the more I see why there are so many people unhappy with it.

Would be great if some new blood that knows the nuances of the series would get a big role to work on the non-MMO titles, that could bring some new life to the next big Final Fantasy but until that happens we have to keep waiting for E3 (and have hope in Nomura too I guess).

Unfortunatley I can't read that as anything besides, "we're going to localize less stuff".

It's a knife that potentially cuts both ways. They may localize less stuff (Bravely Default is NOT reassuring), but they may also stop this attempt at appealing globally with every title and just make what they feel is best and get it localized anyway. Probably depends on if Bravely Default actually does have a large enough base for them to go "ok, maybe we shouldn't be turning our backs on our traditional output."

Or they can at least get into the business of licensing their damn games out, it was understandable not to do that before, but now if they'd really rather be Eidos + FF then something has to give.

FF spin offs can be an amazing thing... but how many of those were actually good????

None of the Crystal Chronicle games ever pulled in AMAZINGs/10The Mana series got butchered more and more with every new installmentFF13 was a game about hallways and machine gods; while FF13-2 was a time travel anime with cosplay peopleNieR's numerous OSTs [probably] outsold the game (certainly its "musical-legacy" will anyways)The 3rd Birthday ruined what the first two games built up and gave us the wrong heroineKingdom Hearts has become a dried up sponge.FFXIV became a laughing stock that, literally, had a bomb dropped on it and remadeType-0 was a major success but stayed in JapanAnd the much anticipated Versus has had hype that's cooled off for a while (E3 had better get us excited for something).

Really, I honestly think some of their best reviewed stuff were re-releases from the generation before.

Is it sad that one of few things I really can't wait is a goddamn game I've already played (FFX/-2)??

They can say they're changing their strategy as much as they want, nothing changed the root of the problem and not asking "why aren't their game good"?Most of their success has, without a doubt, come from Eidos. Squeenix should be happy as hell to have them.

FF13 was a game about hallways and machine gods; while FF13-2 was a time travel anime with cosplay people

Eh, more or less.

The games themselves are based on the Fabula Nova mythology. By default the story of XIII and XIII-2 are just pieces of that mythology.

The only thing that really bothers me about XIII are the novels, all the novels (Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero -Promise-, Episode i-, Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments Before and Fragments After) are canon to the story of the games and only "Episode i" has been officially translated.

"Episode Zero -Promise-" was fan translated before FFXIII was released in the west while Fragments Before and Fragments After have not been translated as far as I know.

- He was probably just referring to the fact that they had some embarrassing attempts to reel in fans of "shooters" with Front Mission Evolved, Gun Loco, Mindjack, etc.- And then the fact that they tried giving Nier global appeal by making him an adult.- Nanashi no Game's localizing getting turned down for lack of guns and violence (etc etc) seemed to be a side effect of this mindset.- Even a major FF (T-0) with a supposed localization couldn't get out of Japan, though one of its creators did want to port it to 3DS iirc.- Most of the games they localized this generation were entries of their cash cow franchises (FF/KH) and mobile games, everything else (tri-ace stuff, tactics ogre, nothing else really comes to mind) seems like it did okay or below expectations.- With that in mind how much less could they really localize with FF and KH doing generally better in NA than Japan?- I think this new president mentioned something about wanting to focus on stuff that makes them money (for now at least?) and big budget games that try to have global appeal but fail to return expected profits are an obvious place to start with that.- This old article is old but relevant and it seems to me like more or less at rock bottom.

- Even a major FF (T-0) with a supposed localization couldn't get out of Japan, though one of its creators did want to port it to 3DS iirc.

Any plans of making an HD version for console?

"We did think about how fun it would be playing Type-0 on a HD television. In fact we did experiment with it, and it was definitely submersive. But unfortunately, there are no plan as of yet."

If you were to make a continuation of Type-0, what kind of game would it be?

"During the creation of Type-0, if felt that it should have been a content high-end machine. If there is a continuation, it definitely would be for a high-end machine. So part of the world will be carried over, and some not; but not to the point of making the two unrelated, but playable by some one who has not played Type-0."